Ask your father – Ha’azinu
Moses’ farewell message is an extended lyrical poem. As his life and career approach their end, he calls upon heaven and earth to witness his words as he urges Israel to learn the lessons of history.
The poem used to be intoned by the Temple choir on holydays; it was sung daily in the synagogue in some places, either in addition to or instead of the Song of the Red Sea.
Its keynote is the verse, Z’chor y’mot olam, binu sh’not dor vador – “Remember the days of old, understand the years of many generations” (Deut. 32:7). The Australian Jewish Historical Society chose the first three Hebrew words as its motto, though the historian has two responsibilities, not only to remember but also to understand.
Moses could hardly have imagined how complex the pursuit of historical knowledge would be in our days, when archival preservation, retrieval and recording are so sophisticated. For him, there was easy accessibility to history every time a child asked a parent a question – “Ask your father,” he says, “and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you.” Parents and elders were the trusted repository of tradition, the walking history books.
And despite all the advances in information and communications, Moses’ advice is still invaluable. “Ask your parents” is not only a child’s first encounter with history but in some ways the best.
The objective historians may have better material and more expert means of analysis, but the story a parent tells a child immediately plugs that child into his or her own background and place in the world. Once you hear your parents’ story you know how you came to be and what moulded your family and its ways and traditions.
It is not long ago that children were uninterested in such things and brushed aside a parent’s occasional endeavours to relate their experiences with remarks such as, “That’s Dad and his stories again!”
Then came a stage when the search for roots became popular and children began to ask, but parents, especially Holocaust survivors, were reluctant to speak. The wound was too fresh, every ounce of courage was summoned to try to rise above the horror and make a new life, and in many homes such things were simply not spoken about.
Now a third stage has emerged. The Holocaust was more than half a century ago. We realise it is the eleventh hour. If Holocaust testimonies are not recorded, they will die with the dwindling numbers of survivors. So children are now asking and parents are now narrating. Projects are under way everywhere to ensure that there is asking and telling. Not because the world needs to know in order to save itself from the spectre of any future Holocaust, but because we do not understand ourselves as a people unless we perceive the strands that have made us what we are.
But it is not only Holocaust experiences that we need on the agenda. Many Australian Jews have families, long settled in this continent, who lived through colourful eras of Australian Jewish history, sometimes in country areas where they maintained their Jewish loyalties against almost impossible odds. Every family, whatever their background and experiences, has a story to tell.
Children must ask and elders must narrate. Otherwise we will be overtaken by cultural amnesia. We will lack self-knowledge because we do not remember or rather, because we brushed aside Dad and his stories and now it is too late to ask.
